


But I Was the Hero

by Isa1187



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Game Over, Gen, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3170309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isa1187/pseuds/Isa1187
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aranea tried to exile Lord English to a doomed timeline. The Condesce wants her to know just how badly she screwed up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But I Was the Hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uncertainAnomaly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uncertainAnomaly/gifts).



The plan was perfect, worthy of Mindfang’s power and inventiveness. Lord English could never be defeated through magic or strategy or brute force, but that didn’t matter anymore. It didn’t matter that he was always already here, not when Aranea could use his own best trick against him and destroy him before he ever had a chance to exist. 

Sure, she needed to kill a few people to make the plan work, but hadn’t Meenah showed her that hard decisions had to be made? Hadn’t Meenah taught her that death was preferable to many other fates? 

_And I’ve earned the chance to be a hero_ , muttered a small and honest and easily ignored voice in the back of her mind. Aranea ignored that voice as she slipped the ring of life onto her finger and ascended to exile Lord English to an eternally doomed timeline. 

* * * 

The plan wasn’t perfect. It didn’t take into account so much resistance, the desperate trolls, the mind-controlled humans. There was no contingency plan for fighting the Condesce. 

Aranea had thought she’d been prepared for facing the Condesce – _it’s just Meenah, it’s just Meenah_. But Meenah was snarky and abrasive and her friend. A small and rational part of her mind wondered whether the Condesce had ever been like Meenah, thousands of sweeps ago and several universes away, before filing the thought away as irrelevant. Even from a distance, the queen of the trolls burned with the distilled fury of trollkind and the stolen power of psionics and lords. 

Aranea had hoped to reason with the Condesce. That hope shriveled up and died as the ancient troll approached, and Aranea bared her teeth in a snarl that any of the Alternian trolls would have been proud of. She could still salvage this. The Condesce didn’t need to survive, and Aranea was as immortal as anyone had ever been. 

_I am the hero of this story_ , Aranea reminded herself as she gathered her power and threw the Land of Light and Rain at the Condesce’s head. 

The Condesce roared and stepped out of the way of the planet, which crashed into another player's land, shattering into pieces. Aranea took a deep breath and grabbed another planet, determined to destroy the entire session if she had to. She hurled it at the Condesce, but it didn’t even make it halfway there. The planet stopped in mid-throw, held motionless by the Condesce. Aranea snarled and pushed with all the power of the doomed rustbloods, fighting until her vision blacked out, until the world disappeared to a single point of effort, until she was quite sure that her mind and bones and soul would crack under the strain.

Nothing happened. 

She passed out from effort. 

After long minutes of dark, pulsing unconsciousness, Aranea opened her eyes again. Had she won? She was sure that she must either be dead or victorious, and although she could see the shattered remains of planets, the Condesce was nowhere in sight. Aranea took a deep breath just to confirm that she was still alive, and slowly relaxed hands that she didn’t remember clenching in the first place. 

She froze halfway through the motion, eyes widening in slow terror. The ring of life was no longer on her finger. Aranea let out a deep, slow breath and turned around to face the Condesce, who had been hovering silently behind her, inspecting the golden ring while casually moving the planet in slow orbits around the pair of trolls. 

_But I am the hero of this story,_ Aranea thought, quiet and terrified. 

The Condesce gave a grin that held no happiness and too much rage and too many teeth. 

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, bitch,” the Condesce roared. “And don’t think that it would ever have worked.”

Aranea tried to answer, tried to explain that she was the hero who would destroy Lord English once and for all, but the Condesce grabbed her by the throat before she could get the words out. 

“This isn’t your glubbing Beforus where everyone is pretty and civilized and weak,” said the Condesce. “You’re one more troll who thinks she can kill the monster, and you think the way to go about it is destroying your universe.” 

Aranea watched the Condesce in wide-eyed terror as she ranted, clawing at the hand that was pressing down on her windpipe. 

“You think that you can heal the timeline because you have glubbing fairy wings and good luck? You think that you can mastermind the Lord of Time and heal a dead session and get all your friends back?” 

Aranea fought frantically as the Condesce brought her close enough to glare directly into her eyes. 

“You THINK that a failed sylph from a failed session can kill what can’t be killed? Haven’t you been listening? He’s already here,” the Condesce hissed. 

_I could have stopped him, I was the hero, I WAS THE HERO,_ Aranea tried and failed to say. 

“You’re not the hero, and Mindfang wasn’t the hero, and you cobalt-bloods who can’t stand to be out of the glubbing spotlight for a single minute have destroyed more with your heroic delusions than any other bitches in paradox space.” 

Aranea stopped fighting at the mention of her alternate self. 

“And you’re not even Alternian,” the Condesce continued. “You never fought for survival before you were enough of an idiot to play a game that destroyed our worlds. You never had to plan, you never had to fight, you never had to struggle, you fought for nothing and you achieved nothing and you are nothing. You’re nothing, and you’re still trying to destroy my glubbing plans, and keep me from remaking my empire, and unlike you with your glowing fairy wings and boring stories and pretending at war, mine work.” 

Aranea felt the hand around her neck tighten until she could barely breathe. 

“You could have been useful, too,” the Condesce muttered in disgust. “If you weren’t so set on being a troublemaking special snowflake. At least the rest of you Beforans had the decency to stay dead.” 

The Condesce stared silently as Aranea struggled for air, and Aranea kept trying to choke out an explanation, a plea, anything. The hovered in a silent tableau among the remains of planets, until the Condesce scowled and tightened her hand. 

_SNAP._

_No_ , Aranea thought, with her last moment of consciousness. _I was supposed to be the hero._


End file.
